


The Best Gift is You

by watcherofworlds



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Christmas fic, F/M, Steggy Secret Santa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-21
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-09-23 20:25:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17087159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/watcherofworlds/pseuds/watcherofworlds
Summary: Peggy and Steve have friends over and enjoy each other's company on Christmas





	The Best Gift is You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [westiec](https://archiveofourown.org/users/westiec/gifts).



“I’ll be home for Christmas, you can plan on me…” Bing Crosby’s voice oozed out from under Steve’s door as Peggy approached it. She smiled. She still remembered when that song was new, still remembered how tinny it had sounded playing over a repurposed HYDRA radio while she and Steve had danced around the mess tent to it, the Commandos looking on with amused smiles plastered across their faces. It was a memory that had been fresh in her mind around this time every year since she’d been found in that cryochamber in what had once been Howard Stark’s basement.  
“Steve?” she called out, entering his apartment. She gasped in surprise and delight as she got an eyeful of Steve’s holiday decorating choices. A Christmas tree draped in white lights and hung with silver ornaments occupied an entire corner of his living room, and colorful string lights were hung along the sides and across the tops of his bookshelves. More lights lay along the floorboards, disappearing out of sight.  
“In here,” Steve called from the kitchen. Peggy followed the lights along the floorboards to the room in question, which was decorated with yet more lights laid across the tops of the cupboards.  
“Why so many lights?” Peggy asked, walking over to where Steve was standing in front of his stove and slipping an arm around his waist by way of greeting.  
“My mother had this tradition,” Steve replied, “where we’d put up as many lights as we could and then those would be what we used to see by from then until we finally took them down, which could sometimes be months after Christmas.  
“Mmm, sounds lovely,” Peggy murmured, resting her head against Steve’s arm. She watched him at work for a while before she thought to ask, “Do you need any help?”  
“No, I’m about done,” Steve replied, glancing over at his oven timer to make sure. “But if you’d get out plates and silverware and stuff, that’d be a big help.” Peggy nodded and detached herself from Steve’s side to do as he’d asked. Not long after that, the few people that Steve had invited over for Christmas dinner- Sam, Bucky, and Wanda- began to filter in one by one.  
Steve’s apartment didn’t have a dining room, so they crowded around the coffee table in his living room, pressed shoulder to shoulder, Peggy with her legs thrown across Steve’s lap, happy and completely, utterly relaxed. Conversation- and alcohol-flowed freely. As the night progressed, Sam managed to convince Bucky to regale them all with tales of his days with the Howlies. Peggy had heard- or been apart of- all of them, but she didn’t mind hearing them again. It was nice to be reminded of the good old days, when her relationship with Steve was still new, and to let them serve as a marker for just how far they both had come.  
Wanda, wine drunk, took to tossing orbs of red power into the air to burst against the ceiling like miniature fireworks, pinprick flashes of multicolored light glinting off of the myriad silver rings she wore on her fingers. Bucky trailed off in the middle of one of his stories to gape at the spectacle. Sam watched too, a gleam of pride and affection in his eyes.  
When dinner was done, their guests filed out one by one, the same way they’d come in, but not before Steve extracted a fervent and sincere promise from each of them that they would take a cab or a rideshare service or public transportation to get home, as they were all much to drunk to drive. Bucky gently reminded him that, like him, the supersoldier serum in his system prevented him from ever feeling the effects of alcohol before declaring himself the group’s designated driver because of that fact and running off to catch up with them. The door swinging shut behind him announced the departure of the last of their guests and the end of their night. Steve and Peggy set to work cleaning everything up, working in a comfortable tandem while Christmas music played softly on Steve’s phone.  
Later, when all the clean up was finished, they lay in a tangle of limbs on Steve’s couch, awash in multicolored light from the Christmas tree and the string lights around the room.  
“I didn’t get you anything for Christmas,” Steve admitted in a mumble. “I couldn’t think of anything that could possibly express how I feel about you. How grateful I am to have you in my life again after so long.”  
“It’s okay,” Peggy replied. “Being here with you is the best and only gift I could ask for.” Steve laughed quietly at that.  
“My sentiments exactly,” he said.


End file.
